The Sandman movie finds a new writer

It’s been a little while since we heard anything about Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s film of Neil Gaiman’s comic book masterpiece The Sandman, but there’s a piece of news that indicates that the project is still moving forward.

Variety reports that Eric Heisserer has been hired to write the script. The incredibly in-demand Jack Thorne (The Fades, Glue, the upcoming Harry Potter: The Cursed Childplay) was previously on board as writer, while the prolific David S Goyer is still on board as producer.

Heisserer has a somewhat patchy CV to date, with the surprisingly good Final Destination 5, the not entirely terrible The Thing prequel, and the heinous Nightmare On Elm Street remake. However, he’s got a lot coming up that sounds promising. He’s co-written The Conjuring 2 with Chad and Carey Hayes, he’s co-written the feature version of the terrifying short Lights Out, and most excitingly, he’s written Denis Villeneuve’s (Prisoners, Sicario, Enemy) upcoming sci-fi Story Of Your Life, starring Amy Adams.

Given how massively complicated turning The Sandman into a film must be, it’s not surprising that it’s going through a couple of writers, but Gordon-Levitt’s continued involvement is encouraging and everything he’s said so far has sounded like he understands what makes the comic great. It will certainly be an ambitious step up from his directorial debut Don John, and there’s also the question of who he’s going to be playing…What do you think? JGL as Morpheus?